Recruitment Drive
by Dante Corwyn
Summary: Set just after Divided Loyalties, in Season 2. Sorta what may have really happened to Talia Winters since I don't buy Besters headinajar story one bit.


After they have gathered as much intelligence as they can from her she will be interrogated, telepathically raped and dissected and all through that time she will be smiling.

Ivonova only has a vision of possible events for a few seconds and she already feels as if she will vomit. For all the possibility's of what human telepathy, no matter how latent it may be, she prays that precognition is not one of them that she has suddenly been blessed with. The feeling only makes it's presence known briefly before she crushes it in her. No weakness. Not now. Corwyn is about to say something but the look she gives him makes him back down and focus on his work. Corwyn has no idea what she would say but there's a good chance it would involve explosive decompression and no chance of offspring. Ivonona composes herself and focuses on incoming transports (A Vorlon transport. How curious. I didn't know that Ambassador Kosh had gone on holiday. What do Vorlon's do on holiday? Sit at a beach? Watch pretty girls go by?), power levels, anything but what will happen over the course of a few weeks at best on an unknown outpost that would be destroyed rather than ever have the chance of what happened there revealed.

Interrogated. Scanned till her neurons burn themselves out. Cut open cell by cell. And always smiling. The Corps is Mother. The Corps is Father.

Parents can still be bastards.

-

Ambassador Kosh steps out to bay 13. Maintenance workers usually leave bay 13 alone even when his ship is not berthed; now they have cleared away for at least 200 metres. Fear of the unknown and rumours are a constant to the universe it seems. The newest is that the ship is an 'evolved' Vorlon. If energy-based lifeforms could perform expressions, this one may try to smile at least once.

The chameleon-skin of his ship ripples and a door forms. Out of the shadows (the idea of shadow's being everywhere still unnerves him) a human steps out. Dressed in a style that would be the height of fashion if it was 400 years ago and on Earth. Sebastian wastes no time and walks out to greet a master. Kosh shifts his 'head' and therefore his perceptions. Sebastian again has made his 'first' visit to Babylon 5. Sebastian was never recorded on the internal security's camera's for he was 'never' here. Even machines it seems take holidays when a Vorlon demands it.

"You truly believe she may be may be of value to the cause?" Sebastian is one of few of the Vorlons servants who may question their masters orders, but even he the knowledge of tact. Thankfully Kosh understands the value of questioning.

"Her coven changed her without her consent. They have been infiltrated. Her mere possibility of existence proves your race to be of more value than was expected. Of us without becoming us. She may be an useful ally." If Sheridan had heard Kosh speak so verbosely, so human, he'd be living proof that humans can age years in seconds.

"Or an terrible opponent."

Kosh's robes ripple. Lightning gently touches Se bastions cane and it shines.

"Of her own violation at least. Restore her." He turns and leaves. Sebastian bows and returns to the ship.

-

The tests are basic and yet reveal so much more information than they seem to be designed to acquire. In the space of two hours, Talia Winters has just demonstrated that she has not only developed telekinetic ability's but also that she is at least a P12. Not bad considering that P-ratings can never change and that a commercial telepath could possibly become one of the most powerful Psi-Cops ever. Telepathic reconditioning seems to have it's benefits.

There is no need for lie detectors. No need for light or even deep scans. Not with the new Miss Winters. Right now she is telling her mother and father about the telepathic rail road.

There is one lie though. One she has no idea why she said it. The original is still there. Deeply buried in a vault buried a hundred feet in the ground, covered by salt that stops anything from growing. And she is screaming.

To hurt Ivonova? That's why she realises. She quickly surmises over the rest of the rail road. If there was evidence (and given time 'evidence' or a 'confession' would surely turn up) then the only surgery that Dr Franklin would be performing would be heavily supervised in a maximum security prison. She's become the nosy neighbour who's just found a willing ear. "And you'll never guess Susan Ivonova's little secret"...

There is a shudder. Hyperspace freelancers. That's all it could be. Ivonova could not possibly be turning into what Ironheart was. Certainly not enough time for that. The black shuttle steady itself try's to establish contact with the beacon on-board the ship. Mother and Father calling to their lost child.

Communications are quickly re-established. And as quickly are lost. Monosyllabic words are the only one's that the pilot hears. Such as "Oh my" and "No!", although a Harvard education would not stoop so low to call "Arrrgh!" a word. The pilot tears her earpiece off and can still hear the screams of flesh and metal as they explode. Training quickly overcomes shock and she turns the ship around and runs.

In space no-one can hear you scream. Not unless you are telepathic, are in hyperspace which magnify s your powers to unmeasured levels and have just been vaporised with at least a hundred of your brothers and sisters. Even so you would be hard-pressed to hear.

Unless you too were in hyperspace. And were telepathic. And had been altered to be one of the most potentially powerful telepaths in existence.

She doesn't just hear. She sees.

"Kosh".

"Ambassador Kosh? The Vorlon!"

She smiles the same smile she gives him when he raped her mind. "Yes."

He jumps up and hits an alarm. He realises that the klaxon's were not caused by himself. Someone set them off just a second before. There's a shift in the local gravity. Like when the shuttle would dock. But the mothership is still four hours away...

White blinds the pilot. But not before she sees what she can only guess might be a ship. Or the Hand of God.

White blinds the interrogator. He falls to his feet and dares' not get up.

White doesn't blind Talia Winters. In this box of metal her eyes are the only ones open.

"Grandfather's come".


End file.
